On this episode, Natalie, Jackie, Max and AJ explore a playlist of Natalie’s creation, highlighting a specific time of music discovery. On “We Gonna Make It” Jadakiss famously rhymed that “dead rappers get better promotion,” but with some help from his fans he proved that maybe it doesn’t matter.You could have heard this episode 48 hours early by supporting us on Patreon for as low as $1/month. Considering all that was done to raise awareness of those respective projects the suits at Def Jam have to be pleased with the return on their investment in Jada. Jadakiss has no beef, no girl (in public) and no animal cruelty charges to talk about.

Money, only sold a few thousand copies more than Jada in its first week, 151,000 and he’s been out there kissing Christina Milian to get the gossip going. The Dream is not a rapper and his sophomore album on Def Jam, Love Vs. Some of you are probably saying that to compare Jadakiss to Kanye isn’t fair because he was singing. (I’ll leave the debate on their artistic merits to you all.) Kanye’s most recent work, 808s & Heartbreak, sold 450,000 copies, Ludacris’s Theatre of The Mind sold 218,000 copies and Yong Jeezy’s Recession sold 260,000 copies in their respective debut weeks. As a hardcore New York hip-hop fan even I can concede that Young Jeezy, Ludacris and Kanye West are easily more popular than Jadakiss in 2009 getting more radio and video love. The numbers become more intriguing when you compare Jadakiss to his new label mates. Then you have MIMS, another reasonably popular New York artist, sold 12,404 copies of his sophomore album, Guilt.

A younger artist like Bow Wow, who has been selling records longer than Kiss, moved 30, 944 units of New Jack City II (and announced his retirement soon after). In that same week Flo-Rida, a popular, newer artist who has broken digital download sales records TWICE, sold 55, 285 copies of his sophomore album, R.O.O.T.S. On the high side, we have a veteran group like UGK with a wide, supportive fan base mourning the loss of a group member selling 76, 419 units of 4 Life in their first week. To put Jadakiss’ first week sales of The Last Kiss in perspective, you have to look at the debut numbers of other artists in 2009.

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